Gary Drescher wrote:
If the government explicitly says "I promise you immunity from
sanctions if
you meet conditions A, B, C", and you go ahead and meet conditions A,
B, C,
then the government can't turn around and say "But wait! We've also
decided
that there's an exception unless you also meet condition D, so we're
going
ahead and imposing sanctions". That would just be a blatant violation
of the
stated promise; if they could get away with that, then immunity
promises
would be meaningless. And as I pointed out, our legal system depends
heavily
on the integrity of immunity promises. It's not something the courts
would
allow the government to abandon just to impose a minor penalty on
some
pilot. So it's not surprising that no one has been able to cite an
actual
example where an ASRS immunity promise was broken (due to an
accidental ADIZ
incursion, or for any other reason).

I don't know if it's true that ASRS immunity isn't available for ADIZ
incursions -- but just because it isn't, that doesn't mean a promise is
being broken. Due process is only being interfered with if they change
the rules after the fact. The ASRS immunity policy lays out specific
exceptions beforehand, one of them being that the action in question
didn't disclose "a lack of qualification or competency."

IMO, being so lost that someone ends up 3 miles from the White House
shows a lack of qualification or competency. The immunity policy
references 49 U.S.C. Sec. 44709, and that says that the FAA
Administrator can make that decision after an investigation or a
re-examination.

So there's no blatant violation of the stated promise. The stated
promise is that you get immunity if you file a report, and your action
didn't fall under several specific exceptions.

(Admittedly, wouldn't most mistakes that could get your certificate
revoked show some lack of qualification or competancy? I don't know
what the standard is for the FAA to decide you need a re-examination.)

The links to the ASRS immunity policy and 49 U.S.C. Sec 44709:

http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/immunity_nf.htm

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/h...9----000-.html

Charles.
-N8385U